CHAPTER III
There was what seemed like a long silence, though in reality it endured only for a few seconds, whilst General Boswell searched for his gold-rimmed reading glasses, and balanced them on the bridge of that high Quixote nose. By and by, he began to read with great slowness and deliberation, pausing at every other instant to direct a look of calm inspection from John to James, and back again. ‘William Ford,’ he read, Ninth Avenue, Freemans Town, Ontario.’ He paused after the name of the man—he paused after the name of the street—he paused after the name of the town, and he paused again when he had completed the reading of the address. The last pause was longer than the others had been, and he resumed his reading like a man of ice. ‘William Buckle, Lafayetteville, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. George Lightfoot, late of Melbourne, now in England.’
He laid the paper down upon the table with a firm hand, and with a slight shake of the head threw the glasses from their place. ‘Do you know these men?’ he asked, directing his inquiry to Jervoyce.
‘No,’ he said, ‘I never heard of any one of ‘em.’ His shifty eye tried in vain to meet his questioner’s, and he began to fumble nervously with other papers which he had drawn from his pocket in his search for the first.
‘It needs no penetration to discover that this man is lying,’ said the General to himself. He addressed his question to John Jervase, who made shift somehow to meet his look. ‘Do you know these men?’ he asked.
‘No,’ John answered, ‘I never heard of one of them. It’s a conspiracy,’ he cried, suddenly, ‘that’s what it is! It’s a conspiracy! Quit shaking, you wretched coward! Stand up and fight this infernal libel like a man. Ain’t there two of us? If this wicked charge is brought against James Knock Jervoyce, ain’t it brought as well against Jack Jervase, his cousin and his partner? Look at me! You don’t see me shivering and shaking like a frightened rabbit with a weasel after him.’
‘Ah! ‘cried James, in a weak exasperation, ‘it all very well for you. It might mean loss of money to you at the worst; but I’m the man they’re going for.’
‘Oh,’ said John, ‘you are, are you? And why’s that?’
‘Stubbs told me this afternoon,’ said James, c that he could smash me dead, but so far he has no particle of evidence against you.’
A light sprang into the burly scoundrel’s eyes. He veiled it in an instant, but not before two of the quartette there present had read it. The boy turned away, groaning, and the General looked after him with a face from which all sternness disappeared for a moment.
‘Poor lad! ‘he said, within doors. ‘Poor lad!’
‘Now, look here,’ said John Jervase, ‘they haven’t got any evidence agen you any more than they have agen me. The whole thing’s a put-up job. If it was De Blacquaire’s doing, he’d have gone for me rather than for you, because he always hated me, and I’ve put him down more than once or twice at Petty Sessions, and taught him to know his place. But De Blacquaire’s an officer and a gentleman’—he made a burly bow towards the General—’ and I don’t suppose for a minute that he’d be guilty even of dreaming of such a piece of rascality as this. It’s much more likely to be some pettifogging lawyer’s game—some sneaking rogue that’s got these fellow-rascals round him, with an idea of doing a little bit of blackmail. Stubbs is a decent fellow—for a lawyer. I don’t think Stubbs would have a finger in that sort of pie, any more than his master. But Stubbs has been got at; that’s how it’ll turn out, you bet. Keep your pecker up, James,’ he added, in a tone which the patron and the bully spoke at once. ‘Well take care of you. Just you trust to old Jack Jervase—that’s your game, my lad. He’ll fight the battle for the pair of us.’
Between his pretence of having thought the matter out impartially, and his other pretence of encouraging his timid relative, he had talked himself back into something like his common aspect, and his common manner; and there was a little of the nautical swagger in the few steps he took towards the table, where he applied himself again to the decanter.
Just then a knock sounded at the door, and the voice of the domestic from the kitchen was heard saying that Mr. James’s change of clothes was ready for him in the master’s bedroom.
‘You know your way, James,’ said Jervase. ‘You’d better get into dry toggery at once. The missus will have a bedroom ready for you in half an hour. Meanwhile, you go and change; and when you come back we’ll forget this nonsense over a bowl of punch. We’ve both had a drenching this wild night, and we shall neither of us be the worse for a good Captain’s nip.’
James stole furtively away, making himself as small as possible, and the General’s eye followed him to the door.
‘Jervase,’ said the General, with a suspicion of satire in his voice, ‘your cousin seems to take this ridiculous matter rather seriously.’
‘I don’t know why he should, sir,’ Jervase answered. ‘He’s had an honest reputation all his life. Now what is there in this,’ he went on, taking up the scrap of writing the General had laid upon the table, ‘what is there in this to frighten anybody? Who’s William Ford, of Ontario, for instance? William Buckle, U.S.A.—who’s he? And what’s this other fellow’s name—George Lightfoot, late of Melbourne, now in England——’
‘Why!’ cried Polson, suddenly, ‘that’s the very blackguard I——’
He paused suddenly, and turned with a gesture of dismay. He had given himself no time to calculate the significance of the words he had used, and they were no sooner spoken than he knew intuitively that he had at least in part betrayed his father. A lad of a more honest impulse and conduct could not have been found in all England; but even if his father were a rogue—and the belief that he was nothing short of that had already shocked him to the heart—it was not a son’s business to betray him. It was the son’s concern to suffer his own share of shame, if shame should come, and to preserve a front of unshaken confidence. Polson was frozen at his own indiscretion.
‘That is the blackguard,’ said the General, with a certain silky quiet which had in his time grown to be very terrible to people who had come to understand its meaning, ‘that is the blackguard, Polson? Be good enough to enlighten us a little further. You have some acquaintance with Lightfoot, late of Melbourne, now in England, though your father has no knowledge of him.’
‘What do you know about any fellow of that name?’ Jervase asked wrathfully. ‘What bee have you got in your bonnet?’
‘Let us see the bee, Polson, let us see the bee.’
‘Why, sir,’ said Polson, turning with outspread hands of appeal, ‘it comes to nothing. It happened a week or two ago that I found a hulking fellow with a digger’s beard and a red shirt—one of those chaps we’ve seen lately back from Ballarat and Geelong—skulking about outside the gate. I asked him what he wanted, and he was drunk and abusive, and—well, I had to give him a hiding.’
‘Yes,’ said the General, ‘you had to give him a hiding. Why?’
‘I’ve told you, sir,’ Polson stammered. ‘The fellow was drunk, and—when I ordered him away, he got so beastly cheeky that I had to go for him.’
‘Before this happened,’ said the General, somewhat drawling on the words, ‘you exchanged cards and confidences?’ Polson stretched out his hands again in appeal, and the General, looking at him with a countenance impassive as the Sphinx, felt a pang of pity in his heart, for the lad was a good lad, and the old warrior knew it, and he had been near to loving him, this past half-dozen years. And the boy was not merely pale with the suffering of his mind, but his very eyes had lost their colour, as a man’s eyes do when he has received a shot in battle. The General knew that look, and had seen it in the eyes of dying comrades. It touched him nearly, but he gave no sign. ‘Why did the man tell you his name, and that he came from Melbourne?’
‘He said,’ Polson returned, desperately, ‘that he wanted to see Mr. Jervase, and that he meant to see him. He said my father would wish anybody in hell who tried to hide him. That’s all, sir.’
‘And you, Jervase,’ said the General, ‘never heard of this man?’
‘Never in my life,’ Jervase answered bluntly. ‘The world’s gone mad, I fancy. Everybody’s making a fuss about a thing that’ll be forgotten in a week’s time. Why didn’t you,’ he continued, turning sternly upon Polson, ‘why didn’t you tell me about this?’
‘A man can’t make a shindy about it every time he has a turn-up with a tramp,’ Polson answered. ‘I didn’t think it worth while to talk about it.’
‘Polson,’ said the General, ‘I’ve known you since you were no higher than my knee, and I’ve never had a shadow of a reason to doubt your word. I don’t want you to turn informer and I shan’t ask you another question. You had better leave your father and myself to talk this out together.’
‘No, sir,’ said Polson, ‘there’s trouble in the house, and I’m going to stay here, unless I get my father’s orders to go away.’
Now John Jervase was undoubtedly a good deal of a rogue, but no man is all of a piece, and he had one or two good characteristics. Amongst them was a true and deep affection for his only son, and if at the beginning of his career he had had any such hope of honour and credit as his son had bidden fair to bring him as he neared the close of it, he would have made a better man. Polson’s quietly expressed resolve pinched him a little inwardly, and he gave the boy a glance of gratitude.
‘I don’t say go, lad—I say stay. I’ve honoured and respected General Boswell since we first came to be neighbours, twenty years ago; and now I should have a very poor eye indeed if I couldn’t see that he’s on the way to lose his respect for me, if events don’t change his mind. But if there’s anything to be browt against Jack Jervase, let Jack Jervase’s lad stand by and hear it, and see how his father takes the ackisation.’
‘Very well, Jervase,’ said the General. ‘We will have it so. I have an interest in this affair, and I must tell you plainly that your manner is so very strange that I feel scarcely comfortable under it. You are a business man, and you must not object to my using business terms. Very nearly the whole of my fortune is invested in your hands. If your credit is seriously shaken, and, above all, if it is shaken by such a charge as is now being brought against the firm, my daughter and I are on the verge of ruin. It wouldn’t greatly matter about an old campaigner like myself, for I am not yet so far broken that I can’t still run in harness. But I have my little girl to think of, and for her sake I am going to do my duty, as a business man, however unpleasant it may be to me to do it.’
‘The scandal can’t touch you, sir.’ The General smiled sternly.
‘It can’t touch me in one way, but it may break my fortune. Now answer me this one question. What is the worth of the brine which has been pumped up from our workings since the firm of Jervase & Jervoyce began to prosper in that enterprise?’
‘I can tell you that, sir, roughly, in the turn of a hand. First and last, two hundred thousand pounds. That may be a thousand wrong on one side or the other—it may even be five thousand wrong on the one side or the other—but I’ll guarantee that it’s not more than that.’
‘So that if this claim, whether by fair means or by foul, could be established, the firm could be made responsible in a Civil Court for that sum.’
‘Exactly, sir. The case being established, the firm would be responsible for every penny.’
‘And for how large a share,’ the General asked, ‘am I personally responsible?’
‘Each member of the firm,’ Jervase answered, ‘is responsible in his own person for the whole amount. There’s no limitation of liability.’
The conversation was marked by less excitement than it had been on the one side, and by a more business-like manner on the other.
‘You needn’t fear, sir,’ said Jervase. ‘James and I are good to meet the whole of the obligations, and, apart from that, these fellows who are being brought up against us are the very scum of the earth. I don’t suppose that any Court of Law would listen to them.’
‘No?’ asked the General, with sudden keenness. ‘And why are they the very scum of the earth? You don’t know the men?’
Jervase was visibly disconcerted. He stammered as he answered:
‘Why, what else but the scum of the earth can they be, to have trumped up a lying case like this?’
‘’Mph!’ said the General. ‘Be that as it may, as a partner in this concern, I may conceivably be made liable for two hundred thousand pounds?’
‘That’s the law, sir.’
‘That being so, I must take this business into my own hands. Until I am legally advised to a contrary action I shall take no step without informing you of it. But the thing is too serious to be neglected, and I have little liking for your way of meeting it, Jervase, though I like your cousin’s less.’
After this declaration, there was silence for the space of a full minute, and then James came back, his slight figure absurdly costumed in his cousin’s clothes, which were too long for him in the arm, too short in the leg, and too full everywhere.
‘Your cousin and I, Mr. Jervoyce,’ said the General, ‘have arrived at a partial understanding, and I must make the position clear as between you and myself. When did you first hear of this accusation?’
‘To-day,’ said James. ‘Never a word until to-day.’
‘When did you hear of this man Light-foot, late of Melbourne, and now in England?’ James cast a piteously beseeching eye towards Jervase, and the General held out a hand towards the latter as if to interdict the speaking of a word. He repeated his question. ‘When did you first hear of the man Lightfoot, late of Melbourne? Now, come, sir,’ the General cried, in a voice of command, ‘you are here to answer that question on your own responsibility. You don’t choose to answer? Now, the story is that these men have been blackmailing you. Assuming that story to be true, they have been paid, and it is evident that there must be some means of discovering the channel through which payments have been made. Are you prepared to submit to an examination of your books?’
‘I am,’ said John Jervase, ‘willingly, at any moment.’
‘You!’ cried James.
‘And not you?’ said the General. ‘Well, that simplifies matters.’
The wretched James had all but surrendered himself to fate a quarter of an hour before, and now, seeing that he had betrayed himself, he cast the case up altogether, and, throwing both arms upon the table, fell on his knees beside it, dropped his face upon his hands, and began to whimper.
‘Wait a bit, sir,’ cried John Jervase. ‘Now just wait one minute and I’ll put the case before you. Here are the facts. I should be obliged if you would take a seat, sir, and allow me to do the same.’ He moved a chair towards the table with great deliberation, sat down leisurely, reached out for the decanter, filled his glass, emptied it and set it down—all with a certain look of weighty purpose. ‘I’m going to make a clean breast of it, sir. I should leave James to do it if he was capable of doing anything but whimper like a kicked charity boy. It’s a bit to my discredit to speak the plain truth, because I’ve got to admit that I have certainly made an effort to deceive you. That isn’t creditable, and it goes again the grain to admit it. I said I didn’t know this fellow Lightfoot. That was a lie. I know him well. I told the lie to shelter James.’
James lifted a beslobbered face, stared at the speaker for a single instant, and then allowed his head to fall upon his hands again.
‘I did it to shelter James,’ Jervase repeated, and as he spoke he dealt his cousin a sharp kick beneath the table, as if to bespeak that worthy gentleman’s particular attention. ‘James, to tell the truth about him, since it must be told, has always had two sides to him. He was a solid chapel-goer till he was thirty, and he was a deacon or an elder, or something of that sort; but he always had some little game on on the sly, and he always succeeded in keeping his Piccadillies pretty quiet. When he began to make money, he went over to the Church and took the plate round at collecting time, and got to be a sidesman, and a trustee, and I don’t know what all. He never married, but he’s never been without a quiet little home of his own, with a lady at the head of the table—have ye, James?’
James groaned, but made no verbal answer.
‘Now this loafer of a Lightfoot had a sister, and in respect of her, there’s no doubt about it that something discreditable might have been laid to James. For once in his life, he acted like a fool, and he wrote the girl a pile of letters. This fellow Lightfoot got hold of ‘em, and he’s made James pay through the nose ever since. Now the girl’s dead, and the thing’s so old, James has refused to keep this lazy beggar in his idleness and his dissipations any longer. The fellow’s tried to frighten him with the letters, and, failing in that, he’s worked up this lie against the firm, has got two more blackguards to swear to it, seemingly, and there’s the whole truth about the matter. I suppose they’ve got up some sort of a case, or Stubbs wouldn’t be looking at it. But we shall blow it all to smithereens when we get them in the witness box. Now, that’s the whole of the matter. Speak for yourself, James—make a clean breast of it. Isn’t that the truth? I haven’t exaggerated your iniquities, and you may just as well own up to ‘em.’
He kicked his cousin a second time again by way of warning, and James looked up for a second time, and being fortified by the expression of his cousin’s face, he spoke.
‘It’s horribly humiliating to have those things said,’ he gasped. ‘But that is the truth about the whole transaction, General. God forgive me—it’s many years ago. But that’s the miserable truth.’
‘I think,’ said the General, rising from the seat he had taken at his host’s invitation, ‘that it is time for me to go home.’
‘You can’t do that, sir,’ cried Polson. ‘It’s impossible. The weather is worse than ever. Think of Irene going out in such a storm as this! You were weatherbound here hours ago, and listen to it now. No carriage could live on the hillside to-night.’
‘That is probably true,’ said the General with great dryness. ‘And since I am forced to intrude myself upon your hospitalities, I will ask you, Polson, to be good enough to show me to my room.’
He walked from the apartment without further speech, Polson following him; and when the sound of footsteps in the passage had died, John Jervase rose and closed the door.
‘Well, James,’ he said with a grating laugh, ‘that cock didn’t fight anyhow.’
CHAPTER IV
The oil-lamp which hung in the hall was flickering uncertainly as Polson and the General walked towards the foot of the staircase, leaving the passage in darkness for a second or two at a time, and then flaring up with an unwonted brilliance. The young man took a bedroom candle from a table at the stairfoot, lit it, and motioned the General to precede him. He, altogether military in gait, with his shoulders squared to the utmost, marched upstairs as if he were heading an assault by escalade. Polson followed, drooping.
‘This is your room, sir,’ the young man said when they came to the end of the corridor on which they had entered. He threw open the door, and revealed a cheerful scene. Tall wax candles flamed here and there, a great fire burned with a steady glow on the hearth, and the rich dark maroon curtains and hangings of the room gave it a secluded, sheltered, and homely look which under other circumstances would have been wholly comfortable by contrast with the elemental war outside. The General walked into the apartment bolt upright, and Polson stood with the door handle in his grasp, waiting to catch his eye for a single instant that he might say good-night. The elder man wheeled suddenly.
‘Come in!’ he said. ‘Come in and close the door.’ Polson obeyed, wondering what was about to happen. ‘I suspect,’ Boswell began, ‘that I shall have cause to be sorry for myself and for somebody much dearer to me than myself before this business is over. But I am sorry for you, in the meantime, my lad, and I want to tell you that you will have to revise your ideas a little.’
‘As to what, sir?’ asked Polson.
‘Unless I am very much mistaken,’ the elder went on, ‘the business which has been sprung upon us to-night will take some time to settle, and will make more noise in the world than either you or I will care to hear. You can’t go into the army with this hanging over you.’
‘I had made up my mind about that already,’ said the youngster.
‘Well,’ the General returned, ‘it’s a bitter pill for you to swallow, and, as I have said, I am sorry for you. It will not be easy for you to be on terms of intimate friendship with a man who is compelled to fight your father tooth and nail, and there is nothing else for it at this moment but for you and me to say good-bye. Things may right themselves, but I see no use in mincing matters, and I tell you the honest truth when I say that I don’t believe it, and that for the moment I don’t even hope for it. There are some men,’ he added, ‘who can’t afford to treat themselves to violent emotions, and Mr. James Knock Jervoyce is one of them. I hope your father may be able to clear himself of all complicity; but that man’s a rascal whatever happens.’
‘Good-bye, sir,’ said Polson.
‘Good-bye,’ the General answered. He held out his hand, but Polson did not see that friendly gesture, and he walked from the room quite broken, his chin fallen upon his breast, and his broad shoulders rounded with despondency. He went straight to his own room, and there also, after the generous fashion of the countryside, a cheerful fire was burning. It had fallen to a settled ruby glow, and though it filled the room with warmth, it afforded but little light. Polson sat down in the shadow, and stared at the heart of the fire. Outside, the wind howled and wailed, as if in alternate wild triumph and wild mourning; and the rain beat upon the window panes in driving sheets. But he heard no sound and was unconscious of his immediate surroundings. Only two hours ago he had been sitting in sweet nearness to the girl he loved; and he had been transcendently and tumultuously happy. How happy he had not known until the blow came which had dashed the structure of his life to pieces. He had always longed for a career in the army, and the rumours of war which had flown so thickly for the past year and a half had served naturally to set a keener edge to his desire. A commission had not seemed a very likely thing to hope for at one time, for in the years before the Crimean War the sons of the British bourgeoisie were not very welcome in the British army. But as his father had climbed hand-over-hand to wealth, and as one local honour after another had fallen upon him, the prospect grew clearer. Now, John Jervase for three years had held the Commission of the Peace, and had taken a part in politics which had made him something of a figure in the district. He was above all the poor man’s friend, and had become a great authority on working-man economics. He had been foremost in the local movement for the establishment of the Penny Bank, and had printed a pamphlet which somebody else had written to his order, which had brought him into a favourable prominence. The commission for which Polson yearned grew nearer and nearer in prospect, and at last he had almost placed his hand upon it. Now it was gone—gone, in all probability, beyond retrieval, and that alone would have been enough for an average grief. Yet it was barely a tithe of the sudden burden he had to bear. He had lost Irene, and any man who has ever been seriously in love knows what that may mean to the heart of three-and-twenty. And even this was not all, for he had lost his father—lost irrevocably the bluff, outspoken, honourable man of whom, in spite of the occasionally disturbing vulgarities of his manner, he had all his life been proud. Confusedly and slowly the sense of all these losses surged upon him. Now one was uppermost in his mind, and now another; but they were always linked together in one leaden feeling of heavy misery. He sat motionless for a full half-hour, staring at the fire. At last a single dry sob, which shook him from head to foot, escaped him. He rose with a bulldog shake of the head, threw back his shoulders, and walked resolutely but slowly down the staircase. He would have it out then and there, he declared to himself, and would come to an understanding with his father. He would actually know the truth without disguise, and, having learned it, would decide upon the conduct of his future life. There was no thought of desertion in his mind, but there was a great longing to be at action, to be striving with something for a settled purpose; and no settled purpose was possible for him until he and his father could stand heart to heart and face to face, with all pretence between them broken down.
The hall lamp had flickered out, as it had threatened to do, and he groped his way in darkness, though at another moment he would have walked with the sure foot of custom blindfold about the house. Somehow, the whole tide of his purpose seemed suddenly to ebb. He became conscious of the night, and stood in the dark to listen to its wild voices. There were other voices in the air, for he could hear his father speaking in a deep, loud hum, and Jervoyce answering from time to time in a treble like that of an hysteric woman. He felt his way to a hall chair which had its place close to the parlour door, and sat down there to wait until he should find his father alone. He could hear no words from where he sat, but through all the plangent noises of the storm he could discern anger and command in his father’s voice, and a querulous appeal which had a note of rage in it in the voice of his father’s companion. He paid but little heed, for his heart was growing numbed, and no distinct thought any longer found a place in his mind. Sitting there in the dark and the cold, he grew barely conscious of his own pain. This is Nature’s mercy. When the wound is beyond bearing she draws away the sufferer’s consciousness, and an extremity of agony brings its own relief, if only for a little while. A dull ache of respite follows the keener agonies alike of bodily and of mental pain. So he sat there, dulled and numb and empty, and for the moment he cared for nothing.
A gleam of light and the sound of a coming footstep awoke him to a knowledge of his surroundings. He did not wish to be found there sitting miserably in the dark, and he arose, and stood uncertain in what direction to move. The light grew clearer and nearer, and as it turned the corner he saw that it was carried by Irene. He forgot his impulse towards flight, and stood rooted, staring as if he beheld a vision. The little figure came forward with uncertain footsteps, one hand holding the candlestick overhead and the other groping for the wall. The feet trod with a. harsh sound on one or two fragments of broken glass which had escaped the housemaid’s broom. A yearning ache filled him as the girl came nearer, for he saw that her eyes were blind with tears. There was no distortion of the features, save that the small mouth quivered; and the shining drops brimmed over heavily and silently. Not a sigh escaped her, and she came on like a figure in a dream. He moved forward involuntarily, and her name sprang to his lips.
‘Irene!’
She paused and pressed her disengaged hand upon her eyes to clear them of that bitter rain. Then she looked up at him in silence, and the big tears began to well over, shining like diamonds as they fell to the bosom of her dress. It was to be his last sight of her in his own home. He knew it, and his own heart was like cold iron in his breast. She made a picture never to be forgotten; a picture to be recalled on stormy nights at sea; in many a lonely hour of contemplation on alien shores; in many hours of sickness and delirium, in summer heats among the vineyards on the banks of Alma, in winter frosts in the trenches of Sevastopol; in convalescent wanderings amid the dumb reminders of English dead at Scutari; and later, too, in happy hours when the storms of youth were over, and manhood’s heart had found safe anchorage, and the dear head was touched with silver.
She stood there weeping, and he had no power to comfort her—no right to comfort her.
‘Good-bye, Irene.’ He had the right at least to say that to the sweetheart of his boyhood, and the chosen idol of his young manhood’s heart. ‘I have seen your father, dear, and whatever there might have been, it’s all over. Good-bye, and—God bless you, always. Always. Always.’
‘I have seen him, too,’ she answered, and though the tears rained down as fast as ever, there was no break in the sweet quiet voice. ‘Good-bye. God bless you.’
This was all their farewell, save that when she turned away with that uncertain groping of the hand he took it in his own and guided it to the rail of the staircase. He watched her as she slowly mounted the stairs, with the light of the candle falling on her hair, and turning its brown masses to dark gold. All her figure was in shadow, and the dim gold head seemed to float upward until it vanished at the turning of a corner, and the feint light on the wall grew fainter. Then he heard the soft opening of a door, and before it closed again, one sob reached his ears, and stabbed the heart that had laid within him like cold iron; and he knew that all her self-control had broken down. The door closed swiftly, shutting out the last ray of light reflected from the wall, and he found his way back to his chair, and sat there doggedly fighting with himself, and praying for Heaven’s mercy on her, until his eyes tingled as if they had been pricked by a needle. Whether he would have it so or no, the tears came, and as he hid his face in his hands, they dripped between his fingers to the floor. He was but three-and-twenty, and the first passion of the pain of life was upon him.
The door at his side was opened stealthily, and his father spoke almost at his ear, in a harsh whisper.
‘Hillo! The hall’s dark. They’ve all gone to bed, I suppose. Now don’t let’s have any more chatter. Spain’s the land for you, my lad. You’ll start first thing tomorrow. You lie low, and leave me to work things for the pair of us if I can. If I see that the game’s going against us I shall follow. Good God, what’s that?’
‘I am here, father,’ said Polson, rising. ‘I have been waiting to speak to you.’ Jervase started violently at his unexpected voice, and half recoiled into the room behind him.
‘You’re here?’ he said, advancing with clenched hands. ‘What are you doing here? Eavesdropping?’
‘No, sir,’ said Polson more sternly than he had ever spoken in his life till then. ‘That isn’t my line of country, and you know it. I want to speak to you.’
‘Go to your room,’ said his father, hissing from between clenched teeth. ‘Go to your room, sir, and be damned to you.’
‘I have meant to speak to you,’ Polson answered, ‘since I had time to think this night’s work over, and after what I heard just now, I mean it more than ever.’
He entered the room and his father gave way before him. He had forgotten the evident traces of his recent tears, and stood with his eyelashes still glistening and his cheeks wet and scalded. But his brows were drawn level and his jaw was thrust out beneath the tightened lips in a way which brought out the family likeness with amazing force.
‘Well,’ said his father. ‘Say your say, and go.’
‘I shall say my say,’ the younger man responded. ‘Spain is not the place. Castle Barfield is the place. The Beacon Hill is the place. This house is the place.’
‘So you have been eavesdropping?’
‘You know I haven’t,’ Polson answered in cold disdain. ‘But I’m not going to follow that red herring. I say Spain’s not the place—unless——’
He choked and stammered and could go no further.
‘Unless what?’
‘Unless—oh, my God! how can I say it? Unless my father and his cousin are a brace of rascals.’
‘That’s pretty language from an only son.’
‘Yes. It’s pretty language. Give me a chance to take it back, and change it.’
‘Sit down,’ said Jervase, pointing to a chair. His son obeyed him, and he took a seat at the opposite side of the table, leaning both his arms forward ponderously. ‘Now, you and me have got to have this out, I see.’
‘Yes,’ the young man answered, repressing a sick shudder. ‘We must have it out, father.’
‘Very well; I suppose you believe the yarn these chaps have pitched to Stubbs?’
‘What am I to believe?’
‘Suppose it’s true, what do you think is going to happen?’
‘Shame and ruin to us all,’ said Polson.
‘As for shame—maybe yes—most likely no. As for ruin—that’s as I please.’
‘Oh?’
‘That’s as I please, I tell you. If this here idiot hadn’t come bursting in and yelping out his story as he did, we could have managed some sort of a compromise quite easy. As it is, we’ve got our own partner again us. You can guess what sort of a chance that’d give us in a court of justice. Now you remember, Polson. This ain’t a civil perceeding. The minute they get them chaps over from Canada and the States it’s a criminal prosecution. D’ye want to see your own father in the dock? I don’t, and so I tell you. He isn’t going to stand there—you may bet your life to that, and say I told you. If I can get this braying jackass, this leaking sieve, this trembling, yowking lady’s lapdog out o’ the way I can face things.’
‘You can say what you like about me, John,’ said Mr. Jervoyce.
‘Thank you for nothing,’ John answered. ‘That’s my privilege without your leave or with it.’
‘It’s all true, is it?’ asked Polson, drearily.
‘Yes. It’s all true. But look here, Polson, when this fool’s out o’ the way we can make a fight for credit. It’s him as deserves to suffer, and it’s him as has got to suffer to begin with.’
‘Me!’ cried James. ‘Me that deserves to suffer? Who was it put the thing into my mind? Who was it that came time and time and time again to whisper into my ear, and tell me where I could find the men—and—and—and everything? Why curse you——!’
‘Look here,’ said John Jervase. ‘You’re a sidesman and a trustee, and the Lord alone knows what all. Be decent in your language.’
‘You made me your catspaw. You’ve left nothing to be traced to you if you could help it. You’ve thrust me into the mire so that you could walk over dry-shod.’
‘You’ve had your share of the spoil, haven’t you, you lean hypocrite?’ asked Jervase. ‘If you’ll only do as I bid you now I’ll pull you through.’
He had turned to address his cousin, and now he showed him a disdainful back, and came face to face with his son again.
‘What on earth are you doing there?’ he asked, after a minute’s watching.
For Polson was divesting himself of his heavy gold watch and chain, and rolling out gold and silver from his pockets, and pulling one or two handsome rings from his fingers, and laying them all upon the tablecloth before him with an extraordinary stolidity of manner.
‘What are you doing?’ his father asked again.
‘I’ve said good-bye to one or two things to-night,’ said Polson. ‘I’ve got no right to a farthing’s worth of all that. I’ve got no right to anything. It seems I’ve lived on stolen money all my life and gone flaunting about in stolen feathers. Well, I didn’t know it. Perhaps I ought to feel kinder towards you than I do, but I can’t help it.’
‘Why—why——’ Jervase almost babbled. ‘What’s it mean?’
‘It’s one more good-bye. That’s all.’
‘You’re not—you’re not a-going to leave me, Polly? You’re not a-going to throw your father over?’
‘I thought my father was an honest man. I thought I had a right to go into the world amongst gentlemen and hold up my head amongst them, and make a career amongst them. That was a mistake, you see. I’ve been mistaken all along, and now I’ve found it out. Good-bye, father. Goodbye, James.’
‘No, no, Polly. You mustn’t go. I can’t let you go.’
‘Father,’ the young man answered, sternly and sorrowfully, ‘I am going. If I tried to swallow another mouthful in this house it would choke me. If I tried to sleep here another night I might as well lie down on fire. If I can’t eat meat I have a right to, I’ll go without. If I can’t lie down under an honest roof, I can find the lee-side of a hedge.’
‘I’ve been a kind father to you, Polly, my lad; I’ve let you want for nothing.’
‘You’ve let me want for an honest name. That’s all. Good-bye.’
‘But, Polly—Polly—my own lad, my only lad—you’re all I’ve got to live for. What are you going to do?’
‘I shall take the Queen’s shilling, and try my luck in the Crimea.’
And before his father could answer him he was gone.
CHAPTER V
Polson was gone, so far, only to his own room, but so swiftly that it was impossible to intercept him, and the snick of the bolt in the lock arrested his father before he had set a single foot upon the stair.
Grim and pale, Polson lit his candles and began to range about the apartment, drawing out from one recess a pair of heavy walking boots, and from another a well-worn suit of velveteens which had seen him through a year or two of sport in the spinny and at the river side. He cast off the clothes he wore, hastily assumed these stouter garments, and having encased his legs in a pair of strong leather leggings, he opened his bedroom door, blew out his candle, and went swiftly down the stairs into the hall. There the wreckage-of an hour or two ago was all piled together in one corner, but groping amongst it in the darkness with both hands, he found a long waterproof overcoat, and after more search a sealskin shooting cap; appropriating both of these he strode to the rear of the house, opened the door by which his father had entered on that night of evil omen, and walked out into the roaring darkness.
He was on the sheltered side of the building and did not as yet feel the force of the wind. For half a minute he stood with his heart in his throat, and his hand upon the hasp of the door, straining his ears to listen. He heard nothing but the insane noises of the night. Suddenly, he drew the door towards him violently, and it closed with a slam and a snap. He was outside, and the thing he had purposed was accomplished. He had said good-bye to the house in which he had learned to walk and talk—the house which had been his home for the whole of his life, except for a year or two of earliest infancy, and the sound of the closing door seemed as if it cut his life in two.
He walked rapidly until he reached the ridge before he encountered the full violence of the storm, for the wind had shifted within the last hour or two. Then, stalwart as he was, it caught and whirled him and sent him running willy-nilly for a hundred yards or more. But there was not a nail in his boots which was not familiar with every acre of that country-side for a mile or two, and he found the path with ease and certainty, and ploughed along it as surely as if it had been broad daylight, though the night was black as a wolf’s mouth. The bitter wind and driving rain were welcome to his hot eyes and scalded face, and he walked with a swift resolution until he had reached the spot from which in daylight the last view of the house would have been possible. There he turned, the waterproof coat whipping about his ankles like a torn sail, and the rain pattering its own music on his broad shoulders. Dimly, very dimly, he could see—or perhaps he only thought he saw—the chimneys of the old home rising against a little clearing in the distant lift of the sky.
So very brief a while ago he had been happy there. Only an hour or two since he was meditating, between the moves of the game, on the very words he meant to use in telling Irene that he loved her. Only an hour or two since every thought was full of hope and ambition, since the path of honour stood wide open with a vague bright figure beckoning in its far distance.
A frost in harvest time will ripen grain, and a great grief will give a sudden maturity to character. It was a boy who dreamed the happy dreams of that evening; it was a man who turned his back upon the old homestead, and set out upon his journey through the world.
He had a seven miles’ walk before him, and a black unsheltered night at the end of it; but he walked as swiftly and as resolutely as if a goal of comfort had awaited him. When once the hillside was cleared and he had reached level ground, progress was less difficult, and after the tremendous tempest of the day the wind gave signs of having blown itself out. There were pausings and relentings in it, and there were clear spaces in the sky out of which the stars began to shine keen and clear. The storm was over by the time when, after two hours of brisk walking, he had reached his journey’s end, and found himself before the long bleak wall of the cavalry barracks of the great Midland town. He had a long spell of waiting before him, and seating himself on a hewn stone at the side of the barrack gate he filled and lit his pipe, and prepared himself for a game of patience. Once or twice in the course of the long night a policeman passed him, turned his bull’s-eye lantern upon his face, and went by without questioning, and these events made the only break in the long monotony of the hours. He had at last fallen either into a stupor or a doze, when suddenly the notes of a bugle sounding the reveille startled him to his feet, with its urgent call of